Mondrian Inspired Upcycle Art From Soda Cans!

Piet Mondrian was a Dutch painter and is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century as he was instrumental in pioneering abstract art. Using upcycled aluminum drink cans and a thrifted bulletin board, this is my modern take on a Mondrian-inpired piece of art!

 It doesn’t get any better when you use thrifted and free items to create artwork for home decor.

[If you’re looking for some of the things we used, we’ve got you covered (disclosure): The blue links in this post may be affiliate links. We earn a commission from qualifying purchases which we proudly donate to Alzheimer’s research. But don’t worry, you don’t pay a cent more! Thanks for helping to support our fundraiser!]

We’re starting with a thrifted metal message board. We found this Umbra Bullet Board at a thrift store and Hubs painted it for my office. He made brackets for me to fit right over the edge of my ‘cubby’. Now that I’m no long working in an office building, I have no use for it, so it’s time to repurpose it into home decor!

You will need:

1. Umbra Metal Bulletboard
2. Red, white, black and yellow soda cans
3. X-acto knife 
4. High gloss spray paint (white or black)
5. Silver Sharpie
6. Circle template (if you want to draw your own Mondrian design)
7. Nail holder tool
8. Thimble (I’m using a vintage thimble, but I like how these stay on!)
9. Our DIY soda can cutting tool (see how to cut cans)
10. 1/2″ brad nails (ours are 18 gauge)
11. 1.5 mm Beadsmith punch
12. 3/4″ rabbit punch (or equivalent)

First collect red, yellow, white, blue and black cans. We don’t drink soda, so had a friend collect these coke cans for us! Break the cans down and flatten them. There are many ways to break the cans down. But the quickest and easiest way to cut soda cans is with our own DIY tool. There’s even a free template to build your own if you'd like to give it a try (see how to cut cans). Watch the video above to see how to use our amazing invention!

The message board was originally silver. Ideally we would’ve painted it with white spray paint instead of black to make the Mondrian design pop a bit more. But as is usually the case, I was excited to see if this would even work, so I plowed ahead with the colour we originally painted. Use a good quality car spray paint for durability.

Conveniently, as there are holes on the metal message board for pins, you can count out the spacing to keep it consistent! I used a silver Sharpie to mark the placement; just place a dot every four spaces down the board and 6 spaces a across to get the 3/4″ spacing for the punches.

I created this colour reference in Illustrator. But if you don’t have software, just draw circles with a circle template and colour them in to develop your own design. Or copy ours!

You will need around 50 yellow, 47 blue, 117 red, 108 white and 99 black circle punches if you use the same message board - and I counted correctly (there’s a good chance I didn’t).

Once your cans are cut and flattened, use a 3/4″ punch to cut out black, yellow, red, blue and white circles. I’m using a rabbit punch I’ve had since my days as a fashion designer! Turns out, it’s ideal for punching thin metal like aluminum cans!

Once punched, they’re like large sequins!

By the way, it’s a good idea to wear rubberized gloves when handling the cans because they can be sharp when you handle them. If you watch the can cutting video in Step 1 above, you’ll see that the gloves come in handy for flattening the cans too! I love it when things do double duty!

After punching the circles, use the 1.5 mm Beadsmith punch to create the nail hole. I generally don’t punch more than 3-4 at a time or they get stuck.

Tip: make a template, like you see above, out of a plastic lid or one of the metal punches so the holes are consistent.

Starting at the left side with yellow punches, insert a brad nail into the hole. Then grip the brad nail with the nail holder and position it where you marked.

Now, use a thimble to press the nail into the slot on the board (or any hard object). The thimble helps protect your finger from the nail head and makes pressing them in a breeze!

Do that another 500+ times. It sounds like a lot, but I promise you it goes fast! That’s because the cork, or whatever is inside the metal skin, is easy to press into!

Hang your Mondrian artwork on a wall or lean it on a shelf. Who would’ve thought that soda cans and a message board could combine to make such happy art!

By the way, did you spot my little mistake? After staring at it so much during the process, it was only when I posted this on Instagram, and took a moment to admire my work, that I noticed it! Luckily it is such an easy fix to remove the brads and replace a row of punches!! However, I think I’m going to embrace the imperfection; it has a certain charm. I wonder if Mondrian would approve?

Want more ideas for what you can do with soda cans? See our can craft category for more soda can craft ideas. Our most recent one is this can art piece. But if you’re looking for a conversation starter, and you love fashion accessories, try this soda can bracelet!

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